


Playing Heroes

by Rehearsal_Dweller



Series: Learning Normal, Finding Home [12]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-05
Updated: 2014-01-12
Packaged: 2018-01-03 12:56:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1070703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rehearsal_Dweller/pseuds/Rehearsal_Dweller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>History tends to repeat itself.<br/>But unless they happen for the first time, there's nothing to repeat.<br/>So while every generation has its... <i>messes,</i> this one's particularly messy, if only because for once there's no history to use as a playbook.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Probably Important (a prologue)

**Author's Note:**

> SURPRISE!  
> The LNFH-verse gets a chaptered story!  
> NEW PROPHECY  
> EXCITING QUESTS  
> ALLIES WHO SHALL REMAIN SECRET UNTIL THEY ARE ACTUALLY INTRODUCED IN THE STORY  
> and a reeeeeeally short first chapter.  
> It's a prologue, okay?
> 
> [VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: FOR THE MOMENT, THIS STORY ISN'T GOING TO BE FINISHED. I'M NOT HAPPY WITH HOW IT'S TURNING OUT SO I'M SKIPPING AHEAD TO THE NEXT IMPORTANT STORY, AND WILL COME BACK AND EDIT/FINISH THIS ONE WHEN I'M NOT SO IMMEDIATELY FRUSTRATED BY IT. THANK YOU MUCHLY FOR YOUR PATIENCE AND AFFECTION!]

Before Percy and Annabeth were married, Annabeth and Rachel had a girls' night in. They watched movies, talked, baked, and threw things at each other.

It was going perfectly wonderfully until exactly the moment when Rachel went all _Oracle_ on Annabeth.

Fortunately, Annabeth had the presence of mind to write what she said down.

Afterwards, they more or less forgot about the whole thing, caught up in wedding plans and then baby plans and then subtle convince-Nico-to-move-in plans.

But when they packed up to move, just before Bobby was born, Percy came across a page in a drawer labeled _DO NOT LOSE. PROBABLY IMPORTANT._ in Rachel's handwriting.

From there, the piece of paper found its way onto Chiron's desk, and then into a drawer _inside_ of Chiron's desk.

He knew, as he always knew, that one day there would be heroes at the camp who prompted him to dig the scrap of paper out of its drawer, but that day was a long way off.

Hopefully.

For now, though, the page was forgotten again.

Those few people who _did_ stop to think about it considered this the next Great Prophecy.

This was, in itself, a good reason to pretend the prophecy didn't exist: Great Prophecies always caused more trouble than they were worth.

__


	2. Call Me Crazy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have plans for this story. But they are long-term plans, not immediate plans, and as such this chapter was _very hard to write_

An administrator tapped at the classroom door. The teacher nodded and paused the video as the administrator opened the door.

“Miss Jackson?” he said.

Marina jumped up. “Who died?” She frowned at the looks she received from the teacher, the administrator, and her classmates. “I mean – no, fuck it, I don't care what you guys think. Who died?”

“Er, no one, as far as I've been told,” the administrator replied.

“Then what's wrong? In my entire career as a student nobody's 'Miss Jackson'-ed me with that face unless something was very very wrong,” said Marina.

“There's a message for you in the office,” the administrator said, still frowning. “Your father called.”

“ _Shit_.” She picked up her backpack and shoveled her supplies into it. “Which one?”

“Mr Jackson,” answered the administrator, looking puzzled. _Well, figures. Most people are stupid enough not to consider Nico my father, anyway._ “Miss Jackson, if you wouldn't mind coming to the office? We're disrupting the class.”

Marina nodded and followed the man down the hall.

“Is someone in your family ill, Miss Jackson? Is that why you were expecting a death?”

“No sir,” replied Marina, fiddling with the strap of her backpack. “Just cursed. My dad's big sister died when she was my little brother's age, Mom's best friend turned into a – died, same age about. The list goes on.”

“That's... tragic,” said the guy.

Marina shrugged. “That's life. We come from a long line of dead teenagers, my little brother and I.”

She seemed to have stunned him into not asking any more questions.

The message that Dad had left was two words:

_Call Chiron._

So she asked for the use of a school phone and placed a call to Camp.

“What's happening?” she asked, tapping anxiously on the desk.

“Bobby and his quest-mates still have not yet returned.”

“They were due back _days_ ago!”

“We have reason to believe that there has been an incident. Especially considering the similar disappearance of Camp Jupiter's team on a related quest -”

She nearly dropped the phone. “Wait a minute, isn't that Ellis's team?”

“It... is, yes. Ellis was leading that team.”

“Ellis is gone _too_ and nobody told me?”

“There were concerns for your ability to concentrate.”

“Oh, yeah, El could be _dead_ and we're worrying about my grades. Are we at least sending somebody out?” Her voice was shaky, but only just.

“That's why you were instructed to call. If you would relax for a moment and _listen_ , you would know that we would like _you_ to lead the quest to find them.”

“Oh. My baby brother, my best friend, my lead? Fair enough. I can be there by two. Have Cory and Ryan gather their things, I want them with me.”

“Of course. We'll be seeing you shortly, Marina.”

“'Bye, sir.”

Marina hung up and turned to face the secretary who'd been sitting at her desk, watching her.

“I need to leave now,” Marina said.

“You can't just _walk out_ ,” the secretary replied.

“I can and I will. Family emergency. Don't believe me, call my parents,” declared Marina. She swung her backpack onto her shoulder and walked out of the office and out of the building.

–

“Hey, Rach,” Marina said, ducking into Rachel's cave. “M'leading a quest. Prophecy, maybe?”

“Hello, Mari,” replied Rachel. She set the book she'd been reading down on a small table. “And I'm sorry, there is no prophecy to guide you this time. Only your brother's footsteps, and Ellis's.”

“That's hardly traditional,” Marina pointed out.

“I think you'll find,” Rachel said carefully, “that little about this quest will be.”

“You do know something, then,” guessed Marina.

“I have an inkling,” Rachel said, with a sad sort of half-smile on her face.

“Care to _share_ that inkling, if I don't get a prophecy?” Marina requested, giving her best imitation of her dad's _C'mon, how can you say no?_ look.

Rachel smiled properly then. “I'll give you a hint. But I'm an Oracle, I have to be cryptic. It's in the job description.”

“Go on, then, Aunt Rachel,” said Marina. “I've not got much time.”

“I have a feeling, a bad one, that this is the beginning of the next Great Prophecy,” Rachel answered.

Marina frowned. “That's not very cryptic, actually, Rach -” She paused, brows furrowed. “Wait a minute, nobody ever told me there was another Great Prophecy after the giants!”

“No,” said Rachel, “we didn't.”

“But -”

“You have to go now. Leave with the sunset, you've got catching up to do.”

“Rachel -”

“Go, Mari. I'll talk to Chiron while you're away about letting you see that prophecy we talked about.”

Before Marina could protest, Rachel stood up and pushed her out of the cave.

“Try not to die!” she called after the 15-year-old. “Sending out _another_ rescue team would be messy!”

“I'm not gonna _die_ , Rach!” Marina yelled over her shoulder. “I've got monsters to dust!”


	3. Search

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to warn you now: This is not my best writing. I just wanted to get this done and up before I left town, since I've been avoiding it since before Christmas. Getting things and people introduced was causing a ton of trouble for me with this story, but I'm excited about what's gonna happen later. So, uh, sorry.

“I'm stuck,” Marina said.

They'd been out for three days, and the trail had gone cold.

“They've got to be somewhere,” Cory said, flopping onto the bed. “They can't have just _disappeared_.”

“But everything we've found points to exactly that,” replied Marina.

“The later you two stay up talking about this, the less time we'll have to do something about it when it's actually daylight,” mumbled Ryan.

–

“Becca! Oh, little cousin, am I glad to see you.”

Becca frowned. “Toby said that Ellis is missing and Mom told Dad that Bobby disappeared. Why would you want to see _me?_ ”

“Because, Becky my dear, you can give me information,” replied Marina. “When did Ellis's team leave? And who's with him?”

“Uh, they left a week ago,” Becca said. “And I think he's with Carmen and Erin, from the Fourth.”

“Thank the gods you pay attention to things,” said Marina. “You're my favourite cousin. Give Auntie and Uncle Frank my love. 'Bye!”

Marina waved her hand through the image of Becca's face.

“Carmen's an Apollo legacy,” Ryan said.

“Oh, awesome, everybody's family,” Cory said, rolling his eyes. “How does that _help?”_

“I don't know if it does, really,” replied Ryan. “But it's something, right?”

“Not really,” muttered Cory. He stomped back into their room to throw the last of their things into a backpack.

“We'll go back into town later,” Marina told Ryan. “Look around, and then we'll make our way to Idaho and look for similarities. It'll be okay.”

Ryan reached over and set his hand on her shoulder. “If you set your mind to finding them, you will. You and El have that freaky telepathic thing you do -”

“Contrary to popular belief, we're not _actually_ telepathic, so that's not going to help.”

“- and you and Bobby might _bicker_ sometimes, but you care about him,” Ryan carried on. “You can do this.”

Marina frowned. “You're trying to make me feel better and it's weird. Stop that.”

“Stopping that, sir,” said Ryan, grinning.

–

They didn't find anything new in town that day, not that they were really expecting to.

They returned to the city and bought train tickets for the first leg of their journey, which is about when things started actually getting sort of... helpful.

See, that was when the monster attacked.

“You know what to do, guys,” Marina said, and as she did her teammates moved into position next to her.

It was like nothing they'd ever seen or fought before, which was saying something, given the impressive variety of monsters that Marina's dads attracted. Bits and pieces were familiar, but they didn't add up to anything that Marina recognised, and there were plenty of bits that Marina _didn't_ know.

It didn't quite move the way they anticipated, either, and it was really throwing all three of them off. They could handle it, but it wasn't going to be easy to dust.

And then suddenly it wasn't just them.

Out of what felt like nowhere, three more people had appeared to Marina's left.

The one just next to her was a girl with dark skin and a wild smile, who said some words Marina didn't understand. A moment after, glowing symbols appeared in the air between the girl and the monster, which seemed to stun the thing long enough for Marina to step forward and shove her sword through its neck. As the monster dissolved into dust, the girl turned on the balls of her feet to study Marina, Cory, and Ryan.

“Where'd you learn to fight like that?”

“Summer Camp,” the half-bloods replied in near-perfect unison.

“You're what saved us,” Cory pointed out. “That thing moved faster than anything we've fought before.”

“And you manipulated the Mist,” added Ryan, “only that didn't look like anything I've ever seen a child of Hecate do.”

“Child of who?” one of the girl's companions asked.

“Hecate,” repeated Ryan. “Goddess of Magic?”

“I've never heard that name before,” the other stranger said.

Marina closed her eyes. Something about this reminded her of a story her dad once told her, but for the life of her she couldn't remember what or why. “I'm Marina Jackson,” she said, holding her hand out to the girl.

“Amber Kane,” the girl replied.

“These are Cory Waters and Ryan Blake,” Marina introduced, gesturing to her quest-mates.

“Maureen Wilson and Kate Stone,” Amber replied. Marina's eyes were still closed, but if she had to guess Amber was imitating her motions.

“Kane,” repeated Marina. “Why does that sound familiar?” She opened her eyes and blinked at Amber a few times.

Amber sighed. “My dad's Carter Kane.” She said it in that same resigned tone that Marina adopted when kids at Camp got all “ _Jackson_? Is your dad _Percy_ Jackson? Like, for real?” on her.

“Carter... weird monster – ah!” said Marina. She bounced and turned in the air to face her friends. “This story my dad told me _ages_ ago – weird kid, not a demigod, crazy monster – you know what, I'll explain later. When's our train leaving?”

Cory checked his watch. “Uh, soon.”

“We should go, then,” Marina said, nodding. She spun around to Amber, Maureen, and Kate. “Nice meeting you! Thanks for the help. Got to go to Idaho now. Toodles!”

She grabbed her quest-mates by the wrists and dragged them away behind her. She just caught Maureen repeating, “Idaho?” as they left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PS can we talk about how this 'verse now has a daughter of Hades whose surname is Sparks and a son of Zeus whose last name is Waters?


End file.
